Concern 370 · Working draft · editorial review in progress
CSAM generation
AI-generated child sexual abuse material is abusive sexual imagery of children created or altered using AI.
Understanding the concern
The fact that an image is synthetic does not make the harm unreal. Such material can exploit a real child's likeness, circulate alongside records of actual abuse and create further burdens for victims and investigators. The Internet Watch Foundation has documented this material in the reports it assesses.
This topic can be explained without showing the material or describing how to create it. Prevention involves the design of generation tools, hosting and reporting systems, and specialist child-protection work. Monitoring figures describe what an organisation found within its work; they are not a complete count of everything online or proof that every generator permits abuse.
An example
A child's ordinary photograph is misused to create abusive synthetic imagery.
Illustrative unless identified as a documented case.
Words in plain English
- AI
- Software that learns patterns from examples or uses rules to perform tasks such as recognizing images or generating text. It can make mistakes and does not understand every situation as a person would.
- Synthetic
- Made by a computer or another artificial process rather than directly recorded from the event being described.
- CSAM
- Child sexual abuse material. AI-generated abusive material can also harm children and requires protective responses.
Evidence and its limits
IWF provides direct monitoring evidence. Its assessed reports are not a representative census of all online material, and laws differ by jurisdiction.
Internet Watch Foundation · Monitoring report
AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material: 2025 Data and Insights ↗ (opens in a new tab)Material identified and assessed by IWF, not an estimate of all content online.
Broader frameworks and background
These resources provide context. They do not establish every claim in this concern.
A question to discuss
How do services prevent this misuse and support rapid, specialist handling of reports involving children?
Keep track of different views, what needs checking, and any next step in your own discussion notes.
Open discussion notes →Principles for the conversation
Before you finish · reflect together
Virtues and principles to consider
Virtues are qualities we practice in how we treat people and make choices. They are not scores for judging someone. Use these ideas to explore what a thoughtful response could look like.
Justice
Justice means fair treatment, fair procedures, and attention to who receives benefits and burdens. It asks whether people with less power can be heard and seek repair.
Look at outcomes across different groups and individual cases. Provide a usable way to challenge decisions and correct harm. Equal wording in a policy does not guarantee equal treatment in practice.
Ask together: Who benefits, who bears the cost, and who can challenge the decision?
Dignity
Dignity means recognizing each person's worth regardless of usefulness, status, or a system's score. People deserve respect and a voice in matters that affect them.
Explain important decisions, avoid humiliating treatment, and keep room for a person's story. Do not treat a prediction as a complete account of who someone is.
Ask together: Does this use treat each person as someone whose experience matters?
Listening
Listening means trying to understand someone's experience before preparing an answer. People who use a service, work with it, or are judged by it may notice problems its designers miss.
Invite people to describe what happened in their own words. Repeat back what you understood and let them correct it. A quiet person or a complaint that is hard to measure may still reveal something important.
Ask together: Whose experience have we not heard yet?
Editorial ratings
These are editorial judgments from the register, not measured probabilities or predictions about your situation.
About the register and scoring →More ways to explore
Search for more writing
For more specific or recent material, open a search below or ask for a web summary. AI-generated summaries can contain mistakes; open the original articles to check them.